Death Comet Crew - Galacticoast Mosi

Death Comet Crew - Galacticoast Mosi
Death Comet Crew, the New York hip-hop collective founded by Stuart Argabright in 1984, only released two studio EPs before disbanding just over a year later. The group, which comprised Michael Diekmann of Ike Yard, Argabright's Black Rain collaborator Shinichi Shimokawa and DJ High Priest (Nicholas Taylor of Gray), reformed to play shows and release a compilation, This Is Riphop, in 2004. Together with their debut album Ghost Among The Crew, which came out in December, Galacticoast Mosi features some of the group's first new material since the '80s.

The title track is set in a traffic jam. Well, sort of: horns and sampled African drums rip through the claggy atmospheres of "Galacticoast Mosi." It's all capped with a grubby bassline that sticks even as the noises surrounding it crumble. "Alpha Delta" is weaker, all jazzy loops, reverb and unthreatening beats.

Hieroglyphic Being beefs up "Alpha Delta" on his "reinterpretation." Keys patter over a thick, undulating mass of tightly knit drums and synths. There's little of the original's sense of movement; instead, the percussion, synths and keys trace dizzying circles around one another, thickening into a caustic web before dwindling away. By comparison, the other remixes seem unadventurous. LV rework "Galacticoast Mosi" into a slow-burner, foregrounding the roiling drums but doing away with most of the cacophony and the bassline. The result is all pep and little grind. Gifted & Blessed takes the opposite tack on his gloomy techno version of "Galacticoast Mosi." He reduces Death Comet Crew's racket to a dull sheen and dampens the groove to a dead-eyed chug—but unfortunately does away with the original's paranoid mood.